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Archives of General Psychiatry

1994 (51): 826-836

Awareness of Illness in Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective and Mood Disorders
Amador XF, Flaum M, Andreasen NC, Strauss DH, Yale SA, Clark CC, & Gorman JM

RELEVANCE FOR EARLY INTERVENTION

The study reported in this paper involved over 400 patients from around the country and showed, unequivocally, that poor insight into illness is common in psychotic disorders while being rare in other psychiatric disorders. Large proportions of patients with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, psychotic mania and psychotic depression were generally unaware of having an illness. This study is the first to also evaluate whether patients with these disorders were aware of the signs and symptoms of illness that they personally suffered from. Again, a very large proportion of patients in each of these four groups had no insight into the signs of the illness that they had despite the fact that they had been hospitalized in order to receive treatment for the very same symptoms that they were unaware of. The results of this study make it clear that many patients with these disorders lack the ability to recognize that they are ill and in need of medical care.

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